Emmett J. Vaughan

Emmett Vaughan started his University of Iowa career in 1963, as an assistant professor. For many years, Vaughan directed the college's efforts in insurance education. He was instrumental in helping the university earn a distinguished reputation in the field of insurance education in the 1970s and 1980s. He mentored and trained many of the industry's top leaders and wrote a defining text, Fundamentals of Risk and Insurance, now in its 10th edition. Today, insurance executives throughout the state and nation credit Vaughan for influencing their careers.

He was named an associate professor in 1965 and a full professor in 1972. At the end of his career, he served as a professor of finance and was instrumental in the establishment of the Tippie College's Institute of Risk Management and Insurance. The institute was named in his honor in 2004.

Vaughan held the professional designations of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU). He was a member of the American Risk and Insurance Association, Beta Gamma Sigma, Omicron Delta Epsilon, the Society of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters, and the Financial Executives Institute.

For 20 years, Vaughan was the editor of the Agency Management Manual, a popular valuable reference on the legal, financial, and strategic issues related to the operation of an insurance agency. He served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Labor on health insurance issues and testified before committees of the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. Senate, and House of Representatives. Following the Persian Gulf War in 1992, Vaughan assisted Adjustors International, the company hired by Kuwait, to coordinate the nearly 3 million claims for U.N.-mandated reparations due its citizens from Iraq.

Vaughan's importance to the field of insurance, particularly in the state of Iowa, was acknowledged when he was inducted as a charter member of the Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2003, Allied Insurance constructed a new training center at their Des Moines, Iowa, facility, which was dedicated and named in his honor.

Vaughan served the University of Iowa as associate dean for external programs for the then College of Business Administration from 1979 to 1985 and as interim dean of the college from October 1981 through July 1983. After serving as interim dean of the Division of Continuing Education, he was named dean of the division in 1986, and he served in that role until 2001.

A member of the University of Iowa President's Club, Vaughan received many distinctions in his long career. He was named the J.E. Partington Professor of Insurance at the University of Iowa in 1968. One year later, he was inducted as a member of the Japan Risk Management Society, one of only two Americans to receive that honor. Vaughan passed away in 2004.